One of the most common and life-threatening medical conditions is ventricular fibrillation, a condition where the human heart is unable to pump the volume of blood required by the human body. The generally accepted technique for restoring a normal rhythm to a heart experiencing ventricular fibrillation is to apply a strong electric pulse to the heart using an external cardiac defibrillator. External cardiac defibrillators have been successfully used for many years in hospitals by doctors and nurses, and in the field by emergency treatment personnel, e.g., paramedics.
Conventional external cardiac defibrillators first accumulate a high-energy electric charge on an energy storage capacitor. When a switching mechanism is closed, the stored energy is transferred to a patient in the form of a large current pulse. The current pulse is applied to the patient via a pair of electrodes positioned on the patient's chest. The switching mechanism used in most contemporary external defibrillators is a high-energy transfer relay. A discharge control signal causes the relay to complete an electrical circuit between the storage capacitor and a wave shaping circuit whose output is connected to the electrodes attached to the patient.
The relay used in contemporary external defibrillators has traditionally allowed a monophasic waveform to be applied to the patient. It has recently been discovered, however, that there may be certain advantages to applying a biphasic rather than a monophasic waveform to the patient. For example, preliminary research indicates that biphasic waveform may limit the resulting heart trauma associated with the defibrillation pulse.
The American Heart Association has recommended a range of energy levels for the first three defibrillation pulses applied by an external defibrillator. The recommended energy levels are: 200 joules for a first defibrillation pulse; 200 or 300 joules for a second defibrillation pulse; and 360 joules for a third defibrillation pulse, all within a recommended variance range of no more than plus or minus 15 percent according to standards promulgated by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI). These high energy defibrillation pulses are required to ensure that a sufficient amount of the defibrillation pulse energy reaches the heart of the patient and is not dissipated in the chest wall of the patient.
On the other hand, pacers are typically used to administer a series of relatively small electrical pulses to a patient experiencing an irregular heart rhythm. For example, each pacing pulse typically has an energy of about 0.05 J to 1.2 J. Because of the small energies used for pacing pulses, the circuitry used to generate the pacing pulses cannot typically be used for generating defibrillation pulses.
There are some systems that combine both a pacer and a defibrillator in a single unit for providing pacing pulses and defibrillation pulses as required. These conventional systems typically use separate defibrillation and pacing generation circuits. For example, FIG. 1 shows a combined pacing defibrillation unit 5 having a defibrillation circuit 6 and a pacing circuit 7. Unit 5 selectively delivers defibrillation or pacing pulses to the patient. Implantable systems generally use separate electrodes for pacing and defibrillation. An example of an implantable combined defibrillator/pacer is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,521. Of course, having separate defibrillation and pacing circuits tends to increase the cost and size of the unit. In addition, because implantable defibrillators and pacers typically apply relatively low energy pulses, the output circuitry for such implantable units is generally not adaptable for use in an external unit.
The present invention is directed to an apparatus that overcomes the foregoing and other disadvantages in an external pacing/defibrillation unit. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a single output circuit for an external pacer/defibrillator that is capable of applying both high-energy biphasic defibrillation pulses and low-energy pacing pulses to a patient.